The UFO craze – I’ve had enough – Things are starting to talk – Am I on my way to become schizophrenic?

At this spot I have to admit that I’m not capable to give a conclusive and plausible explanation of the described phenomenon, and I’m not sure that any one else after seven years would be able to figure out these mysterious “voices from nowhere”. Although, today I have formed purely personal views based on certain facts that relatively satisfy my logic and common sense, but by no means have I discarded the possibility of other objective explanations. I am by nature anything but a stubborn and dogmatic person who cannot handle criticism or self-criticism.

I’m honest enough to admit to my readers that back in 1959 I had this idea that afterwards proved to be wrong. I connected these mysterious voices on the tapes with the so-called Unidentified Flying Objects, the UFO’s. Back then the number of sightings of these mysterious flying objects had surpassed 100,000, and there practically wasn’t a country in this world over which these mysterious flying objects hadn’t been observed. The thought that there was a connection between the male and female voice on the tape and a crew of a UFO wasn’t really too far-fetched.

In addition to that, observations and adventures by my family and myself just served to strengthen the presumption that we could be dealing with extraterrestrials. I would like to spare me a detailed accounting and would just like to ask the reader not to jump to conclusions that I may be leaning 36 towards fantastic, fairytale hopes and combinations. I have always tried to be soberly objective, and when I drew the wrong conclusion at that time based on what I had actually observed and discovered, then this is no different to what has happened to most other researchers and discoverers in the course of their lives. You must have the courage to admit to error. Errors and wrong conclusions pave the way for realizations and discoveries. It will be this way as long as there are people on this earth that can feel and think.

To make a long story short, after we, my wife and I, had to admit to our highly intense hopes and expectations would be unfulfilled. We were ashamed of ourselves so to speak, also we felt betrayed and mocked by these unknown entities.

I can still remember that in the very moment when I had enough, and then placed my finger on the “off”-switch, I could clearly hear these words of a male voice in my headphones: “Please wait – wait – listen to us…” But I didn’t wait and I didn’t listen anymore either. Instead I closed the lid on my reel-to-reel, gathered all my tapes, and was determined to radically call it “quits” with this nonsense. I was bitter beyond compare and placed the entire blame for this avoidable fiasco with these “spirits” that had made a fool of all of us.

We quickly packed our belongings, locked up the cottage and the large house by the lake, and drove back to Stockholm. I felt somehow relieved, though our departure could have been compared to fleeing.

Upon arriving at home, the first thing I did was to lock all my tapes in a tool cabinet and I shoved the tape recorder far under my desk, so it would stay out of my sight. 37 I experienced an almost allergic turn-off with everything that had to do with tape recording, and yes, I wasn’t even capable of listening to my recorded tapes again, for the sake of an objective evaluation. We humans don’t like to be laughed at by other people or in their view look like fools. We prefer to claim to be a victim of the wrongdoings of others, instead of admitting that we have fallen victim to our own stupidity and wishful thinking.

When my bitterness, for the most part, had evaporated, I started to think calmly about the occurrences out there in the forestof Moelnbo. I decided to start at what seemed to be the weakest point, for I wanted to subject the concept of “extraterrestrials” to a thorough analysis.

According to the statements of many UFO pioneers, the so-called “contact people” make the extraterrestrials out to be a better type of human being appearing as an ideal type with the capability of spreading fear and confusion among living earth people. A part of the UFO believers are trying to turn this whole subject into a modern surrogate religion, that is to say, an interplanetary occult ideology.

For thousands of years now, especially in times of crisis and danger on our earth, all kinds of sects, occult schools and save-the-world movements have sprouted, nurtured in part by religious, and in part by political and ideological sustenance. We too became hooked on this “lovely ideology” of being educated and saved through outside or out-of-this-world beings. Nonetheless, I was sure that in this controversial subject of Ufology and Ifology was no smoke without a fire. The only question was, what are the facts, and what is deceiving or imagination and how one finds the spark of truth amongst the blur of contradictions?

38 The more calmly I thought about this, the more clearly I began to recognize the distortions, which affect human thinking and not just in this area. I actually came pretty close to the solution but suffered a setback due to my own inadequacy.

I no longer doubted that the taped voice phenomena consisted of paraphysical and parapsychic processes that could only be explored objectively with a totally unbiased attitude.

All of October passed. My reel-to-reel was still in exile under my desk. But then something happened that filled me with surprise and agitation.

It started with a strange sound phenomenon being audible around me during the course of the day. For example, when I was sitting in my studio listening to the splashing of the rain, I could clearly hear short calls, words or partial words, yes among them even longer sentences, that originated from the drizzle or rain dropping sounds from the water and that were whispered undeniably by a female voice. For the most part the sentences repeated themselves and were spoken sometimes in German and sometimes in Swedish and they went something like: “Hold contact – with the equipment hold contact – please listen – daily contact with equipment – please, please listen!…” The same words were even audible in the crackling of the stove fire or in the rustling of paper. There was no doubt for me that this was truly a sound phenomenon and not my imagination, because I could clearly recognize the sound and character of the same female voice, that had been heard on my tapes on many occasions.

39 Still, I was restless about this. I somehow resisted these intruding contacts that reawakened the memories of forgotten fairytale imaginings and various ghost stories. Besides that, I had to keep the symptoms of schizophrenia (split personality) in mind, where hearing invisible persons is typical. This doubt caused me much apprehension, though I felt altogether healthy and “normal”, it still left a pinprick of suspicion within me.

Did I really fall victim to a mental disorder? That thought seemed laughable to me. I was sleeping remarkably well and was never bothered by any fear or hallucinations. My ability to concentrate was functioning just fine and my body and mind seemed to be in order as well. Yet still I was perceiving voices around me, yes even from the vibrating noise of my electric razor, I could clearly hear the female voice whispering to me, “Please – please keep contact – listen – listen – with equipment listen – please keep contact… ‘

I have to thank my hurt self-pride that I didn’t follow up on the demands of this woman’s voice, because what would have been easier than capturing this pressing whispering on tape. It was logical: If the whispered voices truly did exist, that is to say were not an auditory hallucination, then the tape recorder should be able to record them. Once they were recorded you had essentially locked in the objective proof of their existence, and with that any suspicion of schizophrenia would be laid to rest once and for all.

At that time I found myself in a highly tense and nervous condition. 40 My listening skills had improved greatly, I had actually suddenly become very keen of hearing. It was amazing. Involuntarily and quickly, this sudden capability blossomed within me, an overwhelming experience that I could hardly keep up with. In my desperation, I had even taken up smoking, a weakness of which I was really ashamed of at the same time.